KI announcing something big...

The prevailing wisdom here over the years has been that Kinzel isn't a fan of installing animatronics in his parks, since CF can't be the best at it. (And as if this line of logic prevents them from selling food in the parks...)

Wouldn't doing something with SOB follow suit with alot of these clues. SOB already has alot of biggest, and longests already established. I realize there are reasons to think it won't be anything to do with SOB as well. Such as will be ready for this year. How plausable would it be to give it TG treatment? After how well TG's transformation is going over you have to think that it's a possiblilty.

Maybe that pathway drawing is how they are going to connect the Beast with SOB... Give it Texas Giant treatment, put it 4 loops and have the first ever 22,000 foot hybread, hyper, looping wooden coaster with dino animatronics. ;)

DKNY6363 said:
hybread

Is that an amalgamation of wood, steel, and yeast? ;)

Texas Giant original cost: 5.5 million. Refurb: 10 million
SOB original cost: 20 million. Refurb: 36 million?

I don't think it's gonna happen.

I'm not sure if that's a valid way to extrapolate the refurb costs for SOB. More accurately, perhaps, would be to use the length of track.

SOB is 1.43 times as long as TG. Therefore, I would expect SOB's refurb to cost around $15 million, give or take a few million.

Did a few interesting calculations. Using a CPI inflation calculator, I found the following:

Texas Giant, built in 1990 for $5.5 million, adjusted for inflation would today coast $9.27 million to build.

The rehab cost of Texas Giant, $10 million, is 107.9% of the cost of completely replacing TG today.

SOB, built in 2000 for $20 million, adjusted for inflation would today cost $25.58 million to build.

At the same factor of 107.9% used above, a rehab of SOB would run $27.59 million.

Of course, this doesn't address the issue dj mentioned. And the specific inflation factor for components of roller coaster costs like lumber, concrete, labor, and the like, might very well be quite different than the general inflation adjuster I used.

Whatever the case, I'm putting my money on SOB not getting the TG treatment.

Another factor would be that you can`t just leave it SBNO forever. What`s it going to cost to dismantle it? You can subtract that from the makeover tab when making decisions.

Hybrid refers to in this case wood, steel, yeast, and dino DNA.

DKNY6363 said:
Hybrid refers to in this case wood, steel, yeast, and Adonis DNA.

Fixed it for you. ;)

Sorry, that was just way too easy to pass up. But I wonder if that would actually make the ride better...

Tigerblood would.

^I heard a rumor that Knoebels uses *that* to grease the tracks on Phoenix!

Well that would certainly increase its #winning qualities!

Vater said:

DKNY6363 said:
hybread

Is that an amalgamation of wood, steel, and yeast? ;)

LOL!! I just spat honey bunches of oats all over my monitor!

DKNY6363 said:
Another factor would be that you can`t just leave it SBNO forever. What`s it going to cost to dismantle it? You can subtract that from the makeover tab when making decisions.

A good question. It's now March and KI has still been mum on the SOB issue. I tend to think that unless this 3-18-11 announcement is somehow related that they are going to be silent until at least another offseason.

Any remote chance they are only doing a partial dismantle of SOB and turning it into an out and back? Not sure where this digger is in relationship to the park and if that is even a remote possibility. Some have said why not make it an out and back.

At this point I could almost see SoB getting topper track all over instead of the new system. Looks like some other Six Flags woodies including Rattler, which already has it, will be getting it this year. I figure putting that all over Sonny would likely help it run better, would be cheaper, and could maybe be done in the offseason if they start early.

How did this turn into a SOB wish list thread?

Tekwardo said:
At this point I could almost see SoB getting topper track all over instead of the new system. Looks like some other Six Flags woodies including Rattler, which already has it, will be getting it this year. I figure putting that all over Sonny would likely help it run better, would be cheaper, and could maybe be done in the offseason if they start early.

Cheaper yes. But do you think ppl will rave over Rattler like they are over TG? Imagion KI with a ride of Toro's likeness at KI clint. I don't know the logistics of whether or not this can be done. But it seems like the best option for it.

Dissmantling could be cheap... $100 on gas, and find a couple of punk kids, or some of sob's biggest haters. Oh and a waiver of course.

Don Helbig told us at Coasting For Kids last summer that they were not planning to decide what to do with SOB until late this summer. Things could change, but that's what he said.

If it's dismantled, it would be even more of a failure of a ride than if it can somehow be used again. Just think of how all of the money being poured into SOB could have been used.

Does something big need to be considered by it's height? Maybe they'll build a GCII coaster along the lines of China's Moutain Flyer. That's big, in GCII terms.

^ except the teaser video was all "longest this.... with the tallest that... and the bigest..... with the most...." Try to fit GCI in the those categories. Unless it was comparing it to other GCI that aren't in China.